Twitter's 2020 features to enhance health of public conversations

Twitter is what’s happening and where people come to stay informed and participate in conversations that interest them. The service is constantly exploring new and dynamic ways to give more control to people over their conversations and to have a healthier experience on Twitter.

As 2020 draws to a close, here’s a look at some of the most interesting products introduced on Twitter this year to ensure the health of the public conversation, while making sure to keep people engaged in the conversations happening around them. 

October 2020 | Read before you Retweet

An in-app prompt to remind the person to open an article before Retweeting or Quote Tweeting something. The prompt helps people on Twitter stay more informed and hold thoughtful conversation on the service. As a result, people who Retweet articles now open them 33% more often before sharing, and some people didn’t end up Retweeting at all after opening the article.

September 2020 | Adding More Context To Trends

Trends on Twitter tell us what everyone is talking about at a particular moment in time. However, there are times when it's not easy to understand why something may be Trending. Twitter has been working to help people understand what’s happening by attaching relevant articles to trends to provide more context. This helps people in seeing descriptions added to some trends and provides them with a straightforward, clearly sourced context to the trend.

August 2020 | New Conversation Settings

This year, Twitter tested new settings to give people more control over their conversations. There are times when people may want to choose who gets to reply to their Tweet, which is why Twitter introduced new conversation settings where people can choose who can reply to their Tweet so that unwanted replies do not get in the way of meaningful conversation.

July 2020 | Limiting the spread of unsafe links

At times, there are URL links to content outside Twitter which could potentially harm electronic devices. To limit the spread of malicious and spammy links, Twitter introduced a URL policy in July 2020, which limits or prevents the spread of malicious URL links. As a result, a warning notice is displayed on the link or they are blocked so that it can’t be Tweeted at all, helping people stay away from links that could mislead or disrupt their Twitter experience.

May 2020 | Nudge

When conversations get heated, people may say things they don't mean. This is why Twitter experimented with prompts before replying to a Tweet with offensive or hurtful language with an effort to keep up the health of the conversations on the service. This allows people to reconsider the language that they are using.

March 2020 | Dedicated COVID-19 Event Page

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Twitter launched a dedicated COVID-19 Events Page to help people find authoritative credible content on #Coronavirus / COVID-19 at the top of the search experience in both English and Hindi. The page was launched in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (@MoHFW) to share the latest facts about the pandemic from verified sources.

February 2020 | Labels for Synthetic and manipulated media

There are times when a Tweet could include manipulated photos or videos that could cause people harm. To control this, Twitter in February announced the rollout of its synthetic and manipulated media policy where the service started labeling Tweets that contained media that was significantly and deceptively altered or fabricated. Labels can be linked to a Twitter moment to provide additional context from reputable sources on the content in question. This helps people understand the Tweets’ authenticity and provides additional context to them.

November 2019 | Two-Factor Authentication for extra Security

To enhance security for people on Twitter, the service in November 2019 rolled out a Two-Factor Authentication, which is an extra layer of security. As part of this, instead of only entering a password to log in, people also need to enter a code or use a security key. This additional step helps in ensuring that only the owner can access the account.

November 2019 | Hide Replies to Tweets

Sometimes replies to your Tweets can be irrelevant, annoying, or even rude, which can completely derail a conversation. In consideration of this, Twitter in November 2019, made it possible for anyone to hide replies to their Tweets. This feature helps people have more control over the conversations they start on Twitter.